Live Reviews

Bird and Monica live at Broadcast in Glasgow

Her dark hair falls over her shoulders like a waterfall of teased emotion. I don’t know what that has to do with music or why I should think it important to mention but sometimes the words write themselves and the pen, with each passing drink, draws upon its own power source.

It’s a stage invasion of sorts when there are nearly as many on stage as there are in the audience. Said audience, previously enamoured of the deeper meaning to be found within the films of Jim Jarmusch, duly switched their attention to the massed entertainment before their eyes and ears for Monica were fronted by no less than Andrea Marini and his ability to vocally reinterpret reality into twisted poetry proved both undiluted by the passage of time and as captivating as ever. I’ve seen him before, and maybe the audience has too, but I don’t forget quality.

Bird, at first encounter, would appear to be another incarnation of the (mostly) girls hooked on reverb genre yet all was not as it seems. For a start, the colour was not black but red – conveniently the only colour you get in the basements of Glasgow - as the band’s musical tales were clearly driven by folk rather than big city influences. She of the long dark hair sang enchantments as if they were merely songs and, with focused bursts of primal energy from her cohorts to unnerve the unwary, it was but a matter of time before their set became collective hypnotism.

Worshipping false gods is probably the kind of sin that will ensure that you burn in hell for all time. Worshipping Bird is worth that risk. Trust me.